


Composed in the Face of Danger

by Zi_Night



Series: Elia Week [3]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Elia Fests, Elia Martell Centric, Gen, Hostage Situations, Kingswood Brotherhood - Freeform, POV Elia Martell, Rhaegar Neutral
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-03
Updated: 2020-10-03
Packaged: 2021-03-08 02:47:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,277
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26798347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Zi_Night/pseuds/Zi_Night
Summary: Day 3: Traits"The moment their cart begins to slow, she knows that something is wrong. They are in the middle of nowhere, taking backroads to further disguise who they are, there should be no reason to stop."
Relationships: (Background) Elia Martell/Rhaegar Targaryen
Series: Elia Week [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1950721
Comments: 2
Kudos: 22





	Composed in the Face of Danger

If someone had told her that she would have been traveling near the end of her pregnancy, she would have asked that person why they thought she would be so careless. Unfortunately, her traveling had very little to do with her. When the first letter had arrived at Dragonstone, demanding that Rhaegar present his child to the king in front of court, they had both brushed it off. Of course they would do that, once their child was old enough that traveling wasn’t a risk. When all the other letters came in after that, Rhaegar explained that his father always hated it when he didn’t jump the moment his father told him to. When Lord Commander Hightower and Ser Oswell arrived at Dragonstone, they had been apologetic, but it was clear that Aerys expected them in King’s Landing _now_.

Ideally, they would have sailed down from Dragonstone through the Blackwater Bay straight to King’s Landing, except it had only taken a few hours of being on a ship for everyone to realize that she was not in a position to travel by sea. When Rhaegar had noticed that her face was flushed, he had suggested that she get out of the sun. When Arthur had seen her swaying and caught her before she fell over, he had suggested that she find a place to sit down. After Corissa soothed her through throwing up bile, her nurse had marched above deck to convince someone to get her off this ship. They disembarked at Sharp Point and House Bar Emmon provided them with supplies to continue their journey on land.

Normally, aside from taking longer, traveling by land would not be an issue, but there had been reports of outlaws in the Kingswood. Bold bandits who had successfully kidnapped some nobles for ransom. They weren’t really looking for a fight, but, more than that, they didn’t want to put her and her child in danger. After much back and forth, they decide that the best course of action would be to split up. They decided that Lord Commander Hightower would travel covertly with her while Rhaegar and everyone else traveled more openly. The idea being that anyone interested in a fight or hostages would take the more obvious prize.

It’s why she finds herself as she is now, in the back of a covered cart enjoying the fresh forest air. They’ve gone to some lengths to hide who they are. Hightower has put aside his white cloak for one of roughspun wool and his sword is not brazenly worn on his waist, but hidden by his side. Their valet chose to wear travel worn clothes instead of something more typical when escorting royalty. She and Corissa have tucked their hair under headscarves and wear simple wool dresses. It’s not the most elaborate of disguises, but they are trying to be quick enough that it doesn’t matter.

There was something very pleasant about traveling like this, toddling through the woods like they weren’t in a rush. The forest was crisp, refreshing, and soothing. The slight swaying of leaves coaxed her into a loose calm she hadn’t felt in a while. It’s only because Corissa had scolded her so many times, that she isn’t hanging her head out of the back of the cart to look out at the forest. There was only so much to do, and looking out at the passing scenery was very pleasing, if slightly dangerous.

That being said, the thing she liked most about this trip was being able to feel her baby. It seemed like her child liked being outside. It felt like her child was more active now as they bumbled through the Kingswood. She spent large swaths of the trip resting her hands on her stomach, feeling her child gently move. There was something special about being able to feel her baby move. Of being able to feel that her child was alive.

About a half a day from their destination, the lull of conversation between Hightower and their valet is interrupted by an inquisitive murmur. The moment their cart begins to slow, she knows that something is wrong. They are in the middle of nowhere, taking backroads to further disguise who they are, there should be no reason to stop. Most of their trip had been uneventful and she had hoped that they would be able to make it without incident. She and Corissa make eye contact, sitting across from each other so they could chat comfortably, before scooting towards the center of the cart.

As the cart eases to a stop, there is a thrumming thump and a pained grunt from Ser Gerold. From inside the cart, they can see the pointed tip of an arrowhead poking through the rider’s bench. They can hear the vibrations of the bloody projectile in the suffocating silence. She overlaps her hands on her stomach and tries to fight the rising stress.

“Don’t move,” a brazen voice called out, “or Dick will put the next one through your eye!” Hightower doesn’t respond and it doesn’t seem like the person threatening him cared about an answer. She can hear footsteps crunching through the dirt. As those footsteps round around their cart, she can also hear another set of footsteps crunch towards them.

The only reason she doesn’t jump as the covers over the back of the cart are pulled open is because she is trying so hard to remain calm. The man who pulled open the covers is a red headed man with a large beard and a bulky body. There is a bow and quiver looped over his shoulder and she wonders if this man put the arrow through Hightower’s hand or if it was Dick, the man he threatened him with. His eyes dart from Corissa to her to her belly. “Pardon lasses,” he says, his voice much softer than it was before, “it seems there has been a misunderstanding. How ‘bout a kiss and me and my companions will be on our way.” She’s more than willing to do it, anything to keep her child safe, but she can’t bring herself to move.

The source of the second set of footsteps appears at the mouth of their cart before she can act. Another man, but this one is leaner with brown hair, brown eyes, and clean-shaven cheeks. He has the kind of face that wouldn’t look out of place anywhere, but also the kind that you could forget moments after seeing. “You ask for too much,” he tells his friend, his voice just as forgetfully pleasant as his face. “It would be improper for a princess to kiss someone so far beneath her.” He looks directly at her as he says it; as though making sure that she understands that he knows who she is.

“A princess?” The archer looks them over more closely. His eyes dart from her to Corissa before settling more fully on her. She feels her heart thump in her chest, but she keeps her breath steady.

The other man hums. “What other Dornish woman would Lord Commander Hightower be escorting?” When his friend whips around to look at him he continues, “You’ll lose your head if you can’t recognize a knight of the Kingsguard without his white cloak.” The man’s voice is chiding but also amused, like he was privy to a joke that she was unaware of. The man steps up onto the back of their cart. Her eyes dart to the sword on his hip before looking back up at his face. “You can try your luck with the maid, but she looks like she’d rather bite you than kiss you.”

The archer eyes Corissa before hesitantly looking at her. “Are we taking her?” Even when asking the question, the archer sounds unsure.

“No.” The swordsman looks down at her stomach. “I’m all for boldness but this one may be too daring, even for us.” He smiles at her and tips his head to the side, his slightly long hair swaying to the side. “If you would, hand over your wealth.” Even though this man has not said anything overtly threatening, if anything he has been very polite, she can’t shake the feeling of danger.

She looks at Corissa and nods her head once, “Do as he asks.” Her nurse doesn’t hesitate and begins to shuffle things around. She looks back at the swordsman and watches him smoothly rest his hand on the pommel of his sword. Corissa wastes no time in producing a chest full of gold, prepared in case they ran into any needed expenses. Her nurse puts the chest on her bench and slides it down to the opening. The archer takes the chest, but the swordsman doesn’t get off their cart.

The swordsman looks back at her and she realizes that the thing that unsettles her the most about this man is how _normal_ he is. How she probably wouldn’t notice him in a crowd or how she wouldn’t think him out of place in court. “Princess, if you’d be so kind as to move this way.”

He phrases it like a request, but she isn’t foolish enough to believe she has much of a choice. She slides down the bench until she is at the end of their cart, well within the man’s reach. As she does so, she notices that the smile does not leave his lips but also that it doesn’t reach his eyes.

He takes his hand off his sword and leans forward. She doesn’t flinch away, but she finds herself tensing her stomach, as though she could pull it into herself and away from this man. He leans into her space until they were face to face. If this were a scene between lovers there would be a kiss that follows. Instead he leans even further into her space until his lips are at her ear. She doesn’t turn to look at him. She just stares straight forward, out of the cart and into the forest.

In all the stories she read the brigand would rip the necklace from the damsel’s neck, but this man carefully brushes his fingers against the nape of her neck to unclasp her necklace. Into her ear, he whispers, “And if we take you,” his voice no longer syrupy polite but unnervingly calm, “you can’t go back and tell your Dornish knight with the striking sword, how excited I am to meet him.” He catches her eye as he leans away from her, so she knows he doesn’t bother to check her necklace before pocketing it. It also lets her see how, now, his eyes are glittering with delight. It makes her think that this man isn’t doing this for the wealth.

He brings his other hand back up to peel her headscarf off her ear. He tilts his head to check each of her ears before taking his hand off her headscarf. “Princess, your hands please.”

As he brings his hand down and away from her head, he lets to tips of his fingers run across the swell of her stomach. Her stomach spasms in an attempt to get away from his fingers, but she keeps her eyes on his. She sees an attention and an awareness to his gaze that frightens her. He knew exactly what he was doing and how it was affecting her, and that was why he was doing it. He was purposefully making her uncomfortable for his own amusement.

This time, he does look down at her jewelry before he takes it, rolling up her sleeves to see what she has on her. Just like with the necklace, he carefully removes her bracelets from her wrists, unclasping the tighter ones and wiggling the looser ones off her wrist. Before he lets go of her hands, he brings one up to his mouth to press a dry kiss to the back of her knuckles. The kiss is a feather-light touch of chapped lips, but she can still feel the slight upward turn of his smile.

After the kiss, he stands up at his full height and puts a hand on his chest. “It was a pleasure to meet you, princess.” He turns back to the archer and says, “Let’s go.” As the swordsman hops off their cart the archer sends her one last look. If she had to put a name to the emotion on his face, she would call it curiosity more than anything else. The archer adjusts the chest under his arm before following his companion.

The moment the bandits are out of sight, Corissa darts forward to close the blinds on the back of their cart. She scoots off her bench to sit on the floor, an arrow would have a harder time getting through the cart itself than the covers. They had been polite, but she wasn’t willing to risk her child.

As the bandits’ footsteps crunch away from them, the swordsman calls out. “Don’t make any hasty moves. Dick will give you a signal for when it is okay for you to go on your way.” Corissa curls up on the floor with her, over her. Corissa’s citrus and cloves scent envelops her as her nurse hovers over her stomach protectively.

The vagueness of the swordsman’s statement means that they have no choice but to wait. On the floor, she becomes hyperaware of their heartbeats. Of Corissa’s in the few points they touch; in the fingertips pressed against her back, in the shoulder pressed against her arm, and in the knee pressed against her thigh. Of her own heartbeat as it beats through her; the rush of it in her ears, the jump of the vein in her neck, the tingle in her fingertips, and the thump in her chest. There is also a discordant note. A little patch of pressure that beats differently from her and Corissa. She wants to imagine that it is her child letting her know that they are all right.

After what feels like an eternity, there is another thrumming thump of an arrow hitting wood. This one isn’t accompanied by a pained grunt, instead Ser Gerold calls out, “Are you well?”

“We are.” She nudges Corissa off her. “Go tend to his hand.” She hopes that Hightower was smart enough to not rip the arrow out of his hand. He should know that Corissa is a trained healer and that hand injuries were not something he should be gambling with.

Corissa helps her off the floor, presses their foreheads together, and gathers her supplies. As Corissa goes to attend to Hightower, she curls her body around her stomach. She is far enough into her pregnancy that she feels like she may pop and it makes her feel vulnerable. She takes deep calming breaths and listens to the quiet hum of Corissa and Hightower speaking.

She has calmed down by the time Corissa returns. This time her nurse does not sit across from her, instead she presses against her side. She tucks herself into her nurse’s side as best she can. “What did he whisper to you,” Corissa asks as she runs her fingers down her back.

She thinks about what the swordsman said, about _why_ he said what he said, and a part of her sneers. “Nothing worth repeating.” She wouldn’t give that man what she wanted, not if she had a say in it. “How did they get us to stop?”

“They left a crate on the road,” they lurch slightly as the cart begins to move again, “large enough that we couldn’t just ride around it. From the state of the crate and what the archer said, it seems like this was a lucky catch and not an attempt to get you.”

The information is only slightly reassuring. Knowing that the net hadn’t been set out for them doesn’t change the fact that they had been caught in it. “How is Lord Hightower’s hand?”

“As well as a hand can be after being shot through with an arrow. The archer shot through the meat of his palm and managed to miss the bones and tendons.” She can feel Corissa’s sigh against the crown of her head. “If the archer wasn’t trying to do much damage, then they managed to land an incredibly skilled shot. If they were trying to do serious damage then Hightower was very fortunate. With the proper treatment, he shouldn’t experience any lasting damage once the wound is healed.”

She nods her head against Corissa’s collarbone. It was good to hear that Ser Gerold wasn’t too hurt. Corissa takes her silence as her no longer wanting to talk, so her nurse begins to hum. She recognizes the song as one of the old Rhoynar ones that Corissa used to sing to her as a child. The vibrations from Corissa’s humming, the quiet tune, and the slow rocking of their cart lull her to sleep.

Because of their stop, they end up arriving at their destination later than they are supposed to. When they arrive at the final town before King’s Landing they are immediately swarmed by the rest of their party. She wakes up when Corissa nudges her awake and she can hear the sound of people speaking around them. Corissa exits the cart first, shooing people back so that she has space to get out of the cart. She gets to the edge of the cart, before Rhaegar lifts her out of it. A part of her is irritated at being picked up, she normally doesn’t like it when men decide that her slender frame means they can just lift her off the ground, but considering the circumstances it doesn’t bother her too much. Rhaegar gently sets her back on the ground and reaches out to touch her face. “Are you alright?”

The warm pads of his fingers glide over her cheekbones. “I am.” She sets his free hand on her stomach and says with a bit more emphasis. “We are.”

He looks at her with sad eyes. Rhaegar’s eyes always looked so sad. “I am glad.” He presses a soft kiss to her temple. His affection was always soft, as though he wasn’t sure how much strength to put behind his touches and was never willing to risk it. “Do you need rest or should we continue on?”

“We should keep going.” Her sleep in the cart had been light but it was enough for her to feel rested enough. “I’m sure everyone would rather sleep in comfort tonight.” Rhaegar lightly runs his thumb over her stomach before stepping away to get everyone moving.

As her husband steps away, Arthur steps forward to take his place. Her friend offers her his arm and, because he has been her friend for so long, she doesn’t feel bad about leaning all her weight on him. “What was your impression of the bandits?” From anyone else this would sound like an idle question, but she knows Arthur well enough to know that this is a probing question. That this was his attempt at asking her how things went without openly asking her.

“They weren’t ruthless brigands who take what they want regardless of the consequences. They were polite and careful. Charming, even.” She thinks of what the swordsman whispered in her ear. Of the purposefulness of how he acted, “And I think that only makes them more dangerous. It is easy to assess people who act senselessly. It is harder to properly estimate people who have not truly shown themselves to you. But I _know_ that they should not be taken lightly.”


End file.
